The handle riser is the heart of an archery bow. It provides a central location for an archer to hold the bow and for attaching all related and necessary items, such as the bow limbs and bow string, arrow rest, bow sight, etc.
Traditional handle risers have varied significantly in terms of overall configuration, the sight window created by the riser, and the material from which the riser is manufactured. Virtually all handle risers include a handle grip and some type of a shelf portion. Sometimes the arrow is launched directly from the top surface of the shelf portion. More commonly, however, an arrow rest is attached to the handle riser within the sight window. Unless the shelf portion is used as the arrow rest, traditional archery bows utilize a separate, add-on arrow rest to be mounted to the handle riser, typically by a bolt and nut or by adhesive.
Recently, overdraw arrow rests for archery bows have become popular for field and target archery, and for bowhunting. An overdraw arrow rest allows the tip of the arrow to be positioned behind the handle riser, rather than at the true line of draw or normal arrow rest position, when the bow is at full draw. Shooting a shorter arrow increases arrow speed because of the decrease in arrow weight. Faster arrow speed equates to flatter trajectory of the arrow.
Overdraw arrow rests have been made of various sizes to accommodate a variety of arrow lengths. A drawback of such traditional overdraw arrow rests, however, is that the overdraw arrow rest is an accessory that must be specially mounted to the bow, typically by retro-fitting existing arrow rest designs. Furthermore, if a different length of arrow is used, a new size of overdraw arrow rest must typically be installed on the handle riser.
In traditional handle riser designs, the arrow rest is always an afterthought. Newly manufactured archery bows have traditionally required installation of a separate arrow rest. Therefore, the archer purchasing a new bow must decide the type, size, and style of arrow rest for the bow. An arrow rest can add significantly to the overall cost of the bow. In addition, many archers lack sufficient knowledge as to the type of arrow rest (e.g., a shoot-around rest or shoot-through rest) that should be installed on their bows. Hence, the traditional requirement of retro-fitting an arrow rest on a handle riser adds cost to the purchase of a basic archery bow, and confuses non-sophisticated archers because of the myriads of types and styles of arrow rests offered.
Still another problem with traditional arrow rests is that they commonly give rise to fletch clearance problems. For proper flight, the arrow is desirably released from the bow with the least possible contact between the arrow (including the fletching) and the arrow rest.
Traditional arrow rests typically remain stationary or bias to a slight degree when an arrow is launched. Thus, the arrow must pass through or around the arrow rest. Traditional mounting arrangements between the arrow rest and the handle riser do not allow the arrow rest to recess out of the path of the arrow.